Sometimes life seems to be circuitous. Doors seem to open into places that were hinted at many years ago. It is as if I heard a whisper of these future events - a gut feeling if you like.
It is still a surprise though - almost like waking up from a long sleep.
I have been offered a place on the Masters in Fine Art and Contemporary Dialogues at the University of Wales Trinity St David's Swansea Campus. The strangest thing is the building incorporates my old Secondary School, the place where my art journey began.
I was given a tour by Ryan Moule the lead tutor. We walked through our old 6th form common room, the Gymnasium (where I sat many of my o'levels and still have nightmares of failing some miserably) and even passed my old art room - where I used to escape to avoid 'sport'. I remember our teacher Mr Deveraux would round up the boys who were put on detention and they would have to sit in the art room while us sixth formers drew them.
If all goes well I start in Sept 2018 doing the course part-time over 3 years.
Another turn of events was the opportunity to enter some artwork into the Swansea Open Competition in the newly renovated Glynn Vivian Art Gallery glynnviviangallery.org. The competition has not been running for some years due to the building work. I entered the two most recent paintings shown on previous blogs, 'Fathers' and 'Hillsong'. To my great surprise both were accepted. The show will run from 2nd Dec - 6th Jan. I am especially pleased because the selection committee included Owen Shears poet and playwright - both works included poems.
These two seemingly disparate events are actually linked - I first felt I really wanted to an artist when at the age of 17 one of my life studies of a boy in detention was shown in a schools exhibition at the Glynn Vivian and it was featured in an article in the South Wales Evening Post. Mr Deveraux however, kept my ego in check by pointing out the boy's feet were far too small !
It has taken me 30 years to come back to working as an artist on a more regular basis - and I'm a bit humbled and very excited at the prospect of doing the Masters.
Paul.
It is still a surprise though - almost like waking up from a long sleep.
I have been offered a place on the Masters in Fine Art and Contemporary Dialogues at the University of Wales Trinity St David's Swansea Campus. The strangest thing is the building incorporates my old Secondary School, the place where my art journey began.
I was given a tour by Ryan Moule the lead tutor. We walked through our old 6th form common room, the Gymnasium (where I sat many of my o'levels and still have nightmares of failing some miserably) and even passed my old art room - where I used to escape to avoid 'sport'. I remember our teacher Mr Deveraux would round up the boys who were put on detention and they would have to sit in the art room while us sixth formers drew them.
If all goes well I start in Sept 2018 doing the course part-time over 3 years.
Another turn of events was the opportunity to enter some artwork into the Swansea Open Competition in the newly renovated Glynn Vivian Art Gallery glynnviviangallery.org. The competition has not been running for some years due to the building work. I entered the two most recent paintings shown on previous blogs, 'Fathers' and 'Hillsong'. To my great surprise both were accepted. The show will run from 2nd Dec - 6th Jan. I am especially pleased because the selection committee included Owen Shears poet and playwright - both works included poems.
These two seemingly disparate events are actually linked - I first felt I really wanted to an artist when at the age of 17 one of my life studies of a boy in detention was shown in a schools exhibition at the Glynn Vivian and it was featured in an article in the South Wales Evening Post. Mr Deveraux however, kept my ego in check by pointing out the boy's feet were far too small !
It has taken me 30 years to come back to working as an artist on a more regular basis - and I'm a bit humbled and very excited at the prospect of doing the Masters.
Paul.
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